News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1887-07-28
THE MYSTERIES OF A DAY.
STRANGE AND CURIOUS EVENTS
WORTHY OF NOTE.
The Telephone Ear-Truth-Down in
Well-An Interesting Phenomena
An Industrial School, Etc, Etc.


from the use of the telephone is the de-
velopement of the telephone ear At
any lecture, where the speaker can be
heard only with difficulty, it will be seen
that every listener will turn the ear he
uses at the telephone. This would seem
to prove that the telephone quickens
ratherthan dulls the hearing. Yet you
tellA person the other ear is not good
and he will get indignant. Here in the
Central Office, where a single ear is on
constant strain, We do not notice that
the other ear suffers from the disuse.
Persons have an idea that the shock they
get sometimes when they have the trIlm
pet at their ear and the operator care
lessly rings them up, Injuries the tympa-
mum, for the ear buzzes for q moment or
two. That may be SO, but l have never
heard Of it being SO in fact.
In BORING a well on the farm of Mrs
Sarah Williams. at Colusa, Cal, the au-
ger struck piece of wood at depth of
ITO feet. The wood brought up the au-
ger was in an excellent state of preser-
walton, and was pronounced call oak.
This place is only 80 feet above the sea
level so that the wood is 100 feet below
the oceans surface. If it was sunk there
when this valley was lake or an arm of
the bay, it was in pretty deep water.
How long since this piece of wood was in
a growing tree? The valley, of course,
has grown, but without some CONFUSION
of nature the growth has been slow-not,
perhaps, over one foot per century.
Then has it been II, 200 years since this
oak tree grew? In the shadow of the
infinite this is not long, but, measured
1N1r ,-ko - 81
long space.
AN industrial school for boys is pro-
| posed at Chicago by Mrs. Celia W.
Wallace, rich and philanthropic wom-
an. She wants an incorporation with n
capital of $500, 900, and large and in
terested public support. The idea is to
have the institution both home and
school, and, besides the dormitories and
workshop, there will be a military drill
room and school house, where the rud-
iments of an education can be acquired
while the boy is learning a trade, in the
workshop. Homeless waits will be taken
there and have chance. There will be
nothing to prevent any boy going back
| to the street if he chooses, and his lib
erty will naturally sift out the hopeless
bad, leaving in the school those worth
| saving.
"YoU have heard the EXPIRE ssion 'The
naked truth, and perhaps you do not
know how it originated" said Rev. Sam
Jones, the Southern evangelist. 81 will
tell you. Once upon time Truth and
Error We're in bathing together. Error
came out first, put on Truths clothes
and ran away. And Error has been
trying to wear the same garments ever
since. When Truth came out of the .
water the only clothing it could find to .
put on was what belonged to Error. /
Before ] will wear such garments as
those, said Truth. Il will go naked all
my life Truth has kept its word, and
goes through the world naked, without
frill or bang or hustle or anything else"
AN interesting phenomenon S for
some time past been observed on the
eastern coast of the Caspian Sea- The
Kara Bobhas is an estuary nearly sepn-
rated from the main body of the sea by
bank through which there is an inlet
The evaporation from this gulf is so
great that current continually sets in
from the Caspian, and, as there is no
return current, the water of the gulf
becomes more and more saliferous, and
a deposit of salt is in course of formation.
The natural result of this would appear
to be that in time this gulf will be cut off
from the Caspian, and thus being dried
up, will become an extensive salt bed.
'THERE are enough shingles sold in
Buffalo every year," said lumber man
on Michigan street, {" to supply every
father in the land with an instrument of
physical punishment. 1t is estimated
that there are $4,000, 900 fathers in the
country who annually infiict 167, 900, 900
spankings, equivalent to a mean pres
sure of 100000, 900 pounds, on their
somewhat numerous offspring. Max
ing allowance for the indiscriminate use
of slippers and rulers and the fact that
Single rarely gives out on one appli-
cation, it is safe to assume that nearly
$4,000, 900 are worn out in this manner
every year"
THE other evening Phillip Spear left
his tive-year-Old boy alone in the house
for little time. While the father was
away n kerosene lamp, left on a stand,
exploded. The little fellow, with re-
markable presence of mind, seized the
lamp and threw it out of the window.
When the lamp struck the sidewalk it
attracted the attention of some men
who ran up stairs and extinguished the
fire, which had burned the stand cloth
and several newspapers lying upon it.
Some of the burning fluid spattered
over the boy, burning him quite severe
ly.
YEARS ago--some say forty, others
thirty-a young girl was in the act of
placing a white pitcher on post which
stands near the South Carolina Railway,
five miles from Aiken, when she was
struck dead by lightning. Ever since
this tragic occurrence the white pitcher
has remained on the post, safe by super
stition from the touch of negroes, who
believe that the arm which touches it
will be paralyzed. Storms and cyclones
and earthquakes have not displaced it,
although the post which holds it is fast
crumbling with decay.
DoMENIoo CALI, Calabrese butcher.
who was condemned for having killed,
in 1880, a fellow-camolriste, left the
prison at Nisida, Italy, having com
pleted his first term, and others follow
ing, rs while in prison he had assassi-
mated no less than four of his fellow
prisoners, also camOrristes. The old
criminal, now So years old, hat demand
ed to be sent to his own village near
CastrOvillari, where he hopes to finish
his days III the house Of a Great-grand-
son, the only one LETT of the entire
family.
SPEAKING of the changes in the eli
mate of Nevada, the VirgiEia city En-
te,piise says: "About three Thousand
head Of sheep ARE nov finding abundant
pasturage i'll the vicinity of this city,
where twenty Years ago a Whipp0orwiu
could not fy over the country without
carrying a sack of provisions. Grad
nall the summer season here has chang
ed. We now have scasonahlo showers
and grass where bat two decades ago
all was drought and barrenness.
A GIRL employed in a corset shop in
New Haven leaned over Il Gour-ioOt rail |
at the elevator door some days ago, J
when the elevator came down and {
pinned her by the neck to the top of t
the gate The elevator is very nicely /
balanced, and stopped without cutting I
her head eff, but held her fast Then t
for some reason it could not be started 5
up; and men tore the gate away to get l
the girl out. She was unconscious, but {
soon recovered unframed. !
SOME men go around talking large
about their plans to buy n house who
haven't money enough to get = third
mortgage on length of fence rail :
Other men go about talking careleSsly d
about their "grounds " who haven't '